


Can We Talk?

by Lina_Muro



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Light Angst, Season 3 Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-29
Updated: 2015-05-29
Packaged: 2018-04-01 19:19:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4031587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lina_Muro/pseuds/Lina_Muro
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Season 3 Finale) When Belle overhears something she shouldn't, muttered by a timetraveller, she can't help but want to talk with Rumplestiltskin about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can We Talk?

“Rumplestiltskin?”

 

Her voice took him by surprise. The imp was sat at his wheel, spinning straw again, to pass the time, to clear the mind.  To think. There was so much he had just learned, and he didn’t quite know how to process the information (if it was that) the little future woman had told him.

 

Belle was among that information, and he didn’t quite know where to begin with that one.

 

“It’s a miracle you two fell for each other.”

 

The lovely maid approached, even though he hadn’t answered her. She moved to the other side of the spinning wheel, looking at him through the turning spokes. She wasn’t smiling, as she was often, but her brow was furrowed in a gentle, concerned frown.

 

“Can we talk?” she asked, reaching out to grab the wheel.

 

His inclination was to yell at her for touching it.  But that was the darkness speaking, and he forced it back.  With it he drove the flutter in his stomach, the desire to reach out and stroke her lovely skin, the ache to hold her.

 

“Well?” he returned, slipping on the imp voice. “What is it, hnnn?”

 

“Who was that woman?”

 

Rumplestiltskin didn’t want to answer her, but he’d never been able to keep much from Belle. In the few months she’d been there, discussions and secrets just seemed to fly out of his mouth around her.

 

“She says she is from the fu-ture,” he responded, enunciating his words in what he tried to play off as a careless manner . “She wants me to help her get back when she’s though fixing her mistakes.”

 

“Oh.”  Belle was silent for a moment, and she bit her lip. “Do you believe her?”

 

“Oh yes,” he answered without hesitation. “She knew too much to not be.” He began to spin again, the creaking of the wheel and the feeling of straw between his fingers an attempt to calm his rapidly beating heart. The idea that he might succeed, that everything was alright, that he could right his wrong with his son was almost too much to bear.

 

“So when she said…”  Belle’s voice drifted off, and her face flushed prettily as she stared at her shoes.

 

Rumplestiltskin stopped spinning and looked at her sharply. “Said what, dearie? I’m no mind-reader,” he snapped.  “What were you eavesdropping on?”   
  


The shyness was gone from Belle in an instant, her hands flying to her sides as her back straightened. “I wasn’t eavesdropping,” she retorted, her voice rising. “She wasn’t exactly quiet about it.”

 

“About what, hmm?” Rumple was standing now, leering at her from over his wheel. “That the pretty little maid falls for the beast? Heard that, did you? That we runaway and live happily-ever-after in a little cottage?”  He gestured wildly with his hands, letting his voice slide into a maniacal giggle.  “From the future she may be,” he cackled, pointing into her face. “But that will never happen.”

 

He turned away from her (he couldn’t bear the look in her eyes), and began to leave the hall, not even bothering to saunter in his usual manner. Belle didn’t follow, and he begged the guilt in his stomach to leave him in peace. The maid was not his future, his son was. And he couldn’t be hers, because...

 

“Why not?”

 

The question caught him off guard and brought him to a stop beside the grand table. His shoulders hunched, and he glanced back at her. She stood with clenched teeth and bright eyes, defiant and beautiful in the fading sunlight.

 

The mask of the imp broke for a moment, and the tired, ancient spinner was suddenly on the surface.  He turned and leaned heavily on the table; his voice was low, and sad when he answered, “Because it can’t, Belle.”

 

Defiance faded from her to be replaced with compassion, and she came toward him touching his shoulder. “Rumple…”

 

“You don’t understand, Belle,” he continued. “The only happy ending I want is finding my son. And I don’t even deserve that one.”   He turned to look at her. “And you…” he smiled sadly, reaching out hesitantly before running a hand down her cheek. “Beautiful, brave Belle. You deserve so much more than an old, broken monster.”

 

She smiled softly. “I decide my own fate,” she answered. “And you’re not a monster. I don’t know why I have to tell you that so often.”

 

He let out a light scoff, shaking his head softly. “I should just let you go.”

 

“You’d have to throw me out.” Belle responded, a smiling curling on her lips. “Even if you sent me away now, I’d come back. I like it here.”

 

“Belle…” But before Rumplestiltskin could begin to say anything, she’d closed the gap between them, pressing her lips to his softly.

 

The change that swept over him was sudden, it felt like drowning and breathing air all at once. Like a dam that had sprung a leak, all the water trying to escape from one tiny hole. He pulled back from her, shocked, as his power rippled in his grasp, struggling to flee from him, from this, the most chaste of kisses. He blundered away from her, tripping and landing on the hard floor, one hand touching his lips in shock.

 

Belle was at his side in the next instant, asking if he was alright, but he shook her off. Summoning his magic around him, he teleported in a puff of smoke, and arrived at his workplace in his tower panting and stumbling. “True Love’s kiss...” he gasped, sinking to the floor. What else was powerful enough to begin to break the bonds of his curse?

 

But there was no joy for him at the realization. Knowledge that his power could be taken from him by this, that the struggle he had made for three hundred years could have been all for nothing in that last moment, that his son could have been lost forever…That couldn’t happen. He wouldn’t stand for it. None of this was going the way it was supposed to!

 

It was that woman’s fault. Emma. Little future girl. But Rumplestiltskin realized in that moment what he needed to do. He wasn’t supposed to meet Emma, and he shouldn’t know that he would find Baelfire, that he didn’t kill that despicable pirate, that apparently his little maid was True Love…

 

No, he couldn’t know any of it, and that meant he needed a memory potion. And so did Belle. She’d refuse to drink, he knew that. So he’d have to slip it to her to maintain the integrity of the timeline.

 

Nothing was more important than Baelfire.

 

The Dark Curse was slowly regaining its strength, reasserting its hold on him.  He could feel the power creeping back into his fingertips, filling his veins. He had temporarily lost the awareness of his castle grounds, but it came back clearly now. Emma and the pirate trash would be back soon. He had to be ready.  They needed to leave, and he needed to not remember any of this.

 

He researched quickly, and was annoyed to find that the power to get them back could only be used by the person who originally directed the time vortex. He had sensed nothing magical about either time traveler. So there was really only one option.

 

Singlemindedly, he teleported a small potions kit into the grand hall. He’d prepare the potion as they talked, and then he’d send them to the Vault. They were dangerous, and since he rarely went there as it was, it would be a safe enough place to leave them to rot. They’d nearly ruined everything, after all. He could justify to himself that they deserved it.

 

He should dismiss Belle. Rumple knew that, but the very thought made his heart ache. If they both forget, he reasoned, she could stay. He was careful as it was, and she’d never expressed anything before Emma had been so foolish as to mutter those words.

 

Rumplestiltskin knew he was only lying to himself.

 

In a rush, he began to prepare the potion. His guests arrived, and at the very least that went according to plan.  But the rush of time that met him as he planned began to slow when it was time to call Belle down to tea. She came hesitantly into the hall, her face blotchy and red. She must have been crying, he realized, another pang of guilt shooting through him. Oh, how he wanted to comfort her.

 

Instead, he gestured to the chair, smiled weakly and said, “Can we talk?”

 

She nodded, but avoided his gaze, sitting down. The place was set for her, tea poured and laced with memory potion.

 

“I want to explain,” he said, standing next to her and holding the sugar bowl in his hands.  She never drank without sugar, and he wanted her to understand before all of this was erased. “I’m going to enact a curse to find my son. I lost him a long time ago, and I need my magic to do that. What happened then, when you….well, you nearly broke my magic. And that scared me.”

 

Belle, looked at him perplexed, but didn’t reply.

 

“I’m a coward, Belle,” he continued, toying with the spoon. “You should know that up front. But I want to be brave for just one moment.” He leaned forward and kissed her softly on the forehead. “I want to tell you that I love you.”

 

Her eyes narrowed. “Then why does it sound like you’re saying goodbye?”

 

He chuckled softly under his breath. “Because when my curse happens, we won’t remember any of this for a very long time.  Sugar?”

 

Belle nodded, holding out her cup to him. “Thank you, Rumple.”

 

“Of course.”  A knot formed in his stomach, and he resisted the urge to knock the tea from her hands.

 

She brought the cup back to its saucer, stirring thoughtfully. “There is something that bothers me though.”  She licked the spoon clean, and brought the cup to her lips. “I mean, there is a lot that you’ve only half-explained, but what happens once you find your son?” She took a small sip, and Rumple didn’t have a chance to answer. Instead, her face convulsed, and she shuddered.  She only had a brief moment to shoot him a look of betrayal, dropping the tea cup before her face smoothed, and it was only confusion there. He magicked the cup back into its saucer, full and clear of memory potion.

 

“Sugar for tea time?” he asked her, slipping back into the imp. Again, he chased away the guilt. It was better this way.  But her eyes were guarded again, where before they’d looked at him earnestly, and her mouth wasn’t smiling.  He could still see the puffiness around her eyes from where she’d been crying.

 

“I...Thank you, Rumpelstiltskin,” she answered. She looked perplexed, as if she’d woken from a dream. “Are we...having tea together?” she asked.

 

“I thought it’d be a nice change,” he answered. He was distracted though, and his own brow was furrowed. “But there’s something I have to do first.”  

 

He sauntered away from her, but turned at the last minute. “Make certain to ask me when I return,” he said, gesturing to her. “I fear it may slip my mind unless you do.”

 

Rumplestiltskin left the hall with a single pursuit in mind. As long as he was going to forget, he might as well know first. Belle’s final comment before the potion took effect was echoing in his head.

 

He needed to know what happened after he found his son.

 

 


End file.
